I am wanting to start a dating site and am not sure where to begin
I am not even sure this is a place to be asking for advice, any help would be appreciated. By the way someone needs to change the typo on the page.

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A General Forum - Discuss the Online Daitng and Social Networking Industry

Thanks Again
Cathy

Cathy,

Kind of like how long is a piece of string.......just online, or offline events too? What areas geographically are you targetting, race religion and so on. What's going to make your site/dating venture different from others, or what's going to make people use it?

I'd be positive saying there is more room in the market fo specalised sites targtted locally but then again the US, UK, Europe and so is so so different.

Perhaps a starrting point would be to tag on and be an affiliate for a bigger site, so you get paid for reffering members, from previous forum/threads I think the guy who runs www.plentyofish.com, or is is plentyoffish...does that - might be worth looking at his site, or emailing him.

Start with the above and see, it'll give you something to narrow down your ideas.

Hi Cathy

It's really not that complex to build a dating site from scratch. It just takes about 2 years of full time job for five teams of
- developers, equally efficient in web applications and database development,
- an expert or two in web usability to build the user friendly interface,
- a billing company to work with credit cards,
- a team of Internet marketers,
- a group of angel investors, presumably not expecting return any time soon.
Once you have everybody in place you are ready to go.
The journey starts with burning cash like no tomorrow to break through a vicious circle an initial stage of database stuffing. No one will sign up till you have users in your DB. And there will be no DB till people start signing up. So you just spend $$$ to get some attention.
How much is enough and how long will you live without knowing what to say to your investors? Well, Toby is right. It all depends on the marketing policy: research, positioning, branding, naming, promotion strategy. Choosing a niche market is important. Mistakes here are fatal. If you do it right, you win, unless you run out of cash first.

Less risky alternatives?
Take a look at http://www.sweetduet.net/index.html
The platform, the technology along with DB, billing service and overall support are for sale.

Good luck,
Alex

IT took me 2 weeks to build the first version all by myself. I didn't need 5 teams 2 years and a ton of staff, does that make me superman?

traffic traffic traffic..and word of mouth. You need to come up with something new too...Take this site for instance: www.gentlemensden.com
It's a new idea, where men can review and research potential dates by their online handles. Plentyoffish dude tweaked his site for search engines..and unless you can do that, then it's really going to cost some coin to get the word out.

wow! 2 weeks first version all by yourself. wow!
And what did your first version do? Said "Hello" to visitors? Super, Man!
What would make you superman is if you spent these 2 weeks trying to understand the difference between e-commerce (as a profitable activity) and e-hobby (as anything but making money).
You certainly don't need any stuff for it.
Since you prefer to introduce yourself as plentyoffish.com, then you'd better take your time to comprehand how their model works. They distinguish from the rest of the market providing a free service. It's a very risky strategy that most of the time doesn't work, but who knows.
Take your time and compare traffic of plentyoffish.com and let's say, lavalife. Suprise, suprise. They are pretty close recently. But it was Lavalife bought for some $100 mln. You ask why, superman? Because, Lava is making money, while plentyoffish.com is making nothing except selling traffic to Google for pennies. See the difference? Did it take you 2 weeks to understand?

Now Alex don't be so bitchy!!!

You both have a fair point and let's bear in mind Cathy only wants the best advice - so yes if she can biuld a site that runs off Google affiliates of other dating affiliate platforms and she ends up be able to do the dishes, cooking and a round of golf with a no hassles site then great!

But it goes back to what she wants to do - yes there is a big difference in Lavalife - who I did not know sold for $100M and Plentyoffish, just always comes back to the 'what do you want to do' question.

Sure if you want to get a 100M buyer then maybe the option that you, like me ended up with is the way forward - yep I too invested $$$, and got shifted about web desingers like they were condoms at a prom night (also made some silly mistakes) and ended up shelling out lots but likewise I am aiming for a buyout but perhaps plentyoffiish is happy ticking over and hey if he's bringing in some dosh then great.

I've done loads of research and personaly reckon, as am sure many will agree there is a mass difference is users who want to use a free site and those who will pay for a service.

Let's get back to Cathy...just work out what you want and need and what direction and then take it from there!

100M for Lavalife...who the hell bought them!!??

Toby, Toby!

Did you oversleep the major industry event along with the PlanetOut’s IPO and the Lemontonic crash?
The industry is in a pretty messy situation. The click prices are skyrocketing thank to the competition, the audience is growing fast but overall everybody is doing bad because of the traffic dilution. Big players' CEO being fired like clock works.
Oh yeh, about Lavalife. Here is the news link for you.
http://www.cbc.ca/stories/2004/03/04/business/lavalife040304
CAD$152 = US$102 by that time.
Frankly, I suspect that it wasn't a clean deal. Lots of unsaid words were hidden there. I guess Lava founders' were very unhappy with there investors and therefore, bought them out through this deal.
Otherwise, it's hard to explain why anybody in a right mind would pay $130 per member. As you may know, Lava claimed having 700,000+ paying members by the deal moment.
MemberWorks (later Vertrue Incorporated), that acquired Lava, said they were interested in the Lava's token-based model. I was laughing into tears to get to know that. They should have ask our friend superman to built the new site for them in 2 weeks and would have saved $100 mil.
Our [url]SweetDuet.com[/url] incorporates both a time subscription and a token-based models providing a great deal of flexibility to users. There are so many unique features on the site that no one else offers. For example, the user preferences sensitive interface, to name one. But I'm still waiting for a $100 mil offer.
Anybody?
I have to admit that you are right about traffic, that is essential to any type of e-commerce. But even if you buy traffic then it’s a technology and marketing and CRM that would convert it into $$$. Miss a piece and you are out of business on a blink of an eye. That’s what happened to Lemontonic with there $35 mln in funding ($25 mln first rounds of private placement and $10 mln later). Now they are manufacturing Hydro Free Furnace Fans. Not really close to dating.
I promise not to be bitchy for the future. But you know it's hard to keep cool when you paid for this experience $$$, blood and sweat and somebody with very limited understanding of the subject interferes.

Alex

Correction.

It's [url]SweetDuet.net[/url] that has more flexibility and power than Match and Lava combined and still available for sale.

Check out SkaDate - powerful and flexible commercial software for a dating site. How you use it depends on your business plan, you just tune it up for your needs. Different kinds of membership, profile fields and so on. Also, there's even a video/audio chat - a right tool to keep your members online.

Make sure you check it out before you make your decision